Whimsical Spring Floral Painted Country Loaf Bread
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Whimsical, magical, and wonderfully botanical this delightful trend of painting on bread is a splendid treat to bake up this spring! I have been absolutely mesmerized seeing various beautiful painted breads on Pinterest and social media. I had to give it a try for myself! Rather than trying this edible decorating technique on sourdough, I used the recipe for my Crusty French Country Boule from my first cookbook, The Prairie Kitchen Cookbook. It worked out great! The result was a positively lovely floral design on bread with a crusty crunchy outside and a soft squishy inside.
is painting on bread edible?
Yes! For this recipe I used gel food coloring and liquid whitener made specifically for gel food coloring. While these ingredients are not natural, they are edible. There are other options if you are looking to avoid food coloring, though you will not achieve the same results without the liquid whitener as it really helps the colors to mimic the look of acrylic paints. Thankfully, Chefmaster also makes gel food colorings that are derived of natural ingredients!
For this particular artful recipe, I am truthfully not an expert on the side effects of using these ingredients to create painted bread. However, there are various studies on the ingredients in these products, namely titanium dioxide, and I would suggest doing your own research and reading any published scientific journals on the subject before eating, if you are concerned!
gathering supplies to paint bread:
Before you begin painting, you will have to gather up some supplies! These ingredients and tools are necessary to successfully paint your loaf so that it looks like a beautiful botanical painting.
Liquid Food Whitener. I used this one by Chefmaster, and it worked wonderfully!
Gel Food Coloring. While you can mix liquid food coloring into the liquid whitener, it will not have the same viscosity as when you use gel food coloring. I would recommend using the Chefmaster brand, if that is the brand of liquid whitener that you purchase as they are made to work together. They also sell an option for natural food coloring.
Round Tip Paintbrushes. Just make sure that you are using paint brushes only for food!
how to paint on bread:
Step One: To begin painting on your bread, you will want to follow the recipe all the way to the final shaping and proofing before baking the loaf. You can paint on any kind of bread, but in general I would choose a recipe that has a final proofing window of at least 30 minutes so that you have enough time to paint on your design. Once your bread has been shaped, you will have a window of about 10 to 15 minutes to paint on your design.
Step Two: Mix up your paints! For these thick, bright colors you will want to mix all of your colors with the liquid whitener. This helps the colors to stand out on the surface of the bread and mimic the look of acrylic paints. You can be as creative with this as you like, mixing together the colors on your artists palette. The colors I made did not actually turn out as soft as I was hoping and were quite bright - I’ll have to practice more!
Step Three: After your bread has almost finished its final proof, about 10 to 15 minutes before it’s ready to go into the oven, begin painting your design.
There is really not much advice I can give here, as your art will be unique to you! I do know that painting flowers and leaves is a perfect option if you do not consider yourself an artist. Personally, I am a terrible painter/drawer (my mom is the person who illustrates anything you see on our website/shop!), but I decided to just let myself have fun.
Making basic shapes and blending colors was really relaxing, and I think this is a creative outlet that anyone can do and enjoy. There are so many sources of inspiration on Pinterest and social media! I love this design (@jaclynnrenee30 on Instagram) and this design (@handmade.farmhouse on Instagram).
Step Four: Score your bread. With a bread lame or serrated knife, score a design on your bread. If you create a design similar to mine, I would suggest scoring a full circle around the bottom edge of the design so that it does not interfere with your painting! You could also plan a more complex score, like leaves, and have your painting interweaved within that design.
Step Five: Bake your bread according to your recipe’s instructions! Then enjoy!
tips for baking bread in a dutch oven:
This Crusty Country Loaf bread recipe is baked in a dutch oven, which gives it a hard and crunchy outer crust just like a loaf of sourdough. However, this recipe is not sourdough bread at all! It’s a quick rise yeasted bread, which is wonderful for a beginner bread baker. I love this recipe because it gives the same impression of sourdough, of course without the added benefits and flavor of fermentation. Sourdough can be difficult and sometimes you just want a basic crusty loaf of bread in a few hours.
Here are some tips for baking bread in a dutch oven:
Preheat Your Dutch Oven. Before placing your loaf into your dutch oven to bake, you should always preheat the pot and lid for at least 30 minutes. I think 45 to 50 minutes is best! This helps with oven spring and the overall final volume of your loaf.
Use Parchment Paper. One way to prevent the bottom of your loaf of bread from burning and overbaking is to use parchment paper. First, let your dough proof in a proofing basket. Then, place a large piece of parchment paper on your countertop. Turn out the dough onto the parchment paper, score, and lift the parchment paper into your dutch oven.
Add Cornmeal. Another option for preventing the bottom of the bread from burning is to sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of the pan. Then place your parchment paper over the cornmeal.
Remove the Lid after 35 Minutes. While your bread bakes in the dutch oven, you will eventually want to remove the lid to give the bread a final beautiful golden brown color. This is my preferred length of time for baking bread in my oven. Everyone’s oven is different, so you may need more or less time with the lid on. In general, the lid should remain on for at least 20 minutes.
my tips for painting bread:
As this was my first time painting on bread, there were a few things that I picked up that I would change in the future. I am sure there are several other tricks that I will learn along the way, too!
Pre-plan your design. This kind of goes without saying, but I just went into this project with few expectations and no plan! My design certainly could have been much better, but like almost everything in my life, I just said, “Eh… we’ll see what happens!” and went for it. In the end, I think it turned out okay. The bread cracked all over the top as it cooled, which I kind of love. If you have a certain design in mind, you may want to pre-plan where it will go and where to score your bread as the final bake may change the final design!
Pre-mix your colors. Just like pre-planning your design, pre-mixing your colors can be helpful in achieving the color palette that you want before feeling rushed to paint your design. These food colors were a new brand to me, so I was not quite sure of the results that I would get. They have several other colors, too, but I thought this pack would blend together nicely. They were much brighter than I was originally planning and they did not dry up excessively so I could have spent more time blending the paints.
Use a plastic palette and not paper plates. I ended up using paper plates to mix my colors as I could not find my paint palette. This was a poor choice as the paints began to soak into the paper plates!
Remove excess flour. The next time I try this, I will be wiping away any excess flour on top of the loaf with a damp cloth. The flour would clump up on the paint brush, which would interrupt my strokes and then mix into the paints on the plates.
final thoughts:
In the end, I think that this floral painted bread turned out really pretty for a first attempt! I absolutely loved expressing my creativity with this simple yet lovely baking technique. It was the perfect spring bake to make. If you love flowers and bread and painting, then I would highly recommend making your own beautiful painted bread recipe. This painted bread recipe is an excellent way to personalize your baking!
xoxo Kayla
My dress is the Edwina 22 from Linennaive (gifted).
Floral Painted Country Loaf Bread
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) warm water
- 1 tbsp (12 g) active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) honey
- 1 tbsp (18 g) kosher salt
- 4 cups (500 g) all-purpose flour
- Liquid whitener
- Gel food coloring
Instructions
- Begin by combining the water, yeast, and honey in a large bowl. Gently whisk and let the mixture sit for about 5 to 8 minutes, or until the yeast blooms or grows and becomes bubbly. Then, whisk in the salt.
- To this mixture, begin slowly adding the flour You may do this by hand with a dough whisk or wooden spoon. Otherwise, mix in an electric standing mixer with a dough hook attachment. Begin first with the spelt flour, fully mixing in before adding the all-purpose flour, about 1 cup (130 g) at a time.
- Knead flour into the dough until the dough no longer clings to the sides of the bowl or to your fingers. Continue to knead for about 5 to 6 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, stretchy, and pliable. If it feels dense, then you have added too much flour. It should still be sticky, just not enough to clump up on your hands!
- Shape the dough into a ball and place it into a large lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
- Gently deflate the dough and stretch it by pulling at the corners. Then, fold the corners in to form another ball. Drag the ball towards you, with the seam side down, to tighten the loaf. Continue to do this until the dough feels nice and taught. Pinch the seam closed.
- Place a lightly floured kitchen towel in a bread banneton. Place the bread with the seam side up in the banneton and cover it with plastic wrap. If you do not have a bread banneton, or proofing basket, you can simply put the bread on a piece of parchment paper - the basket just helps the bread to hold its shape before baking, so you may have a more spread-out loaf.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425° F (218° C) and place a 5-quart (4.7 L) dutch oven in to preheat.
- Let the bread rise for about 40 to 45 minutes, or until nearly doubled in size. Mix your food colorings together with the liquid whitener to prepare for painting. During the last 10 to 15 minutes of proofing, paint your bread.
- If you used a proofing basket, flip the bread out onto a piece of parchment paper. Paint on your design with paint brushes only used for food. Score the loaf with a bread lame or serrated knife in any design that you like to accompany your painting. Then, carefully lift the parchment paper up and into the hot dutch oven.
- Close the lid of the dutch oven and bake the bread for 35 minutes, covered. After 15 minutes, remove the lid and continue to bake the loaf, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the bread is a deep golden brown and it sounds hollow when tapped upon with the tips of your fingers.
- Let the bread rest for at least 30 minutes before slicing.
Notes
- If you would like to omit the spelt flour, simply replace with 1 cup (130 g) all-purpose flour.
Nutrition Facts
Calories
1897Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
